Operation Frequent Wind

Operation Frequent Wind occurred from 29 to 30 April 1975 when the United States evacuated 7,000 US personnel and South Vietnamese civilians from Saigon by helicopter shortly before the Fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.

As the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies advanced on the South Vietnam capital of Saigon, the US embassy staff in Saigon and the remaining US Marine Corps soldiers in the country made preparations to evacuate. President Gerald Ford regarded the Vietnam War as finished, so he decided to simply evacuate the US personnel rather than provide military asisstance to the South. The original plan was to use ships and planes to evacuate US personnel to the US 7th Fleet, but Tan Son Nhut Airbase was cratered by NVA mortar fire, which also killed two US Marine Corps guards, the last two Americans to be killed in the Vietnam War. Instead, the evacuation would have to be carried out via helicopter at the US embassy in Saigon. At 11:00 AM on 29 April 1975, the US radio station in Saigon played "White Christmas" as a secret signal that the evacuation was beginning. The US embassy was soon overwhelmed by South Vietnamese civilians desperately hoping to flee from the communists, and the Marines were forced to keep the gates shut and deny entry to the Vietnamese, even rejecting bribes. A total of 1,373 Americans and 5,595 Vietnamese and third-country nationals were evacuated from the embassy, and the aircraft carriers became so packed that they had to throw helicopters into the ocean to make more room for new arrivals. 50,493 people were evacuated from Tan Son Nhut in fixed-wing evacuations, and a total of 138,869 Vietnamese civilians would make it to the USA through self-evacuations (the "boat people" or ARVN soldiers who commandeered helicopters).